Tory Leadership

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Boggersbelief wrote:
That was an optimistic prediction. It's funny how you always refer back to that though, as you have fuck all else to go on

Of course I'm going to refer back to my favourite post of all time.

I even mocked it myself. An emotionally fuelled prediction has no relevance to my intelligence, though

I let a lot of the unfair stick about me go but it's about time I stopped doing that. Especially when it comes from a bunch of dopes

Meltdown 

Reebok Trotter wrote:

wanderlust wrote:Starting to look like a two horse race between May and Leadsom so nailed on it's going to be a woman. May obviously way ahead at the moment but with the Tory bigwigs backing Leadsom who is likely to pick up Gove/Leave campaigners support when Gove folds it could be close, however there is a move within the party to shorten the election period and effectively shoehorn May into the job before Leadsom's campaign can pick up further momentum.

So whilst it was three men who led the surrender, which woman will lead the retreat?

I can't stand May so for me I would plump for Leadsom especially as she was a committed Brexiter. May as Home secretary was found wanting during the London Olympics by granting the contract for security to G4S, who made a dogs breakfast of the operational running of the event. I'm sure I read somewhere that Theresa May's husband was a shareholder in a subsidiary company of G4S?

Three years ago Leadsom said Brexit would be a “disaster for our economy and would lead to a decade of economic and political uncertainty at a time when the tectonic plates are moving”. She has plenty of UKIP support and said she wouldn’t rule out giving Nigel Farage a role in renegotiation. She is also reluctant to publish her tax return due to her use of trusts and tax havens.

Sounds perfect!

Boggersbelief wrote:

Copper Dragon wrote:I think 10,400 of your other posts is something to go on.

One of the worms I was talking about, WGO.

I'm with you brother, but he's cleverer than we are he can count to 12 on his fingers.

I wonder if anyone is going to address the elephant in the room and even suggest looking at refusing to invoke article 50. There are factions looking into it and how it can be avoided with one law firm threatening to sue the government if it is invoked without a parliamentary debate and vote.
Another point would be if the government did look at overturning the referendum result, would that then bring Cameron back into play for the leadership.
Interesting times.

if they did decide not to invoke article 50 then they have to answer to 17 million people that voted for Brexit, it would be the end of their political career

I've said this before but we can't have our cake and eat it. We voted as a nation to come out so we can't pick and choose what parts of the EU we still want to access, there is no way the other countries will let us cherry pick the best bits and then ask for controls on immigration

I voted in but now they HAVE to leave. The damage from not doing so would be irreparable

y2johnny wrote:I voted in but now they HAVE to leave. The damage from not doing so would be irreparable

Damage to who though?

xmiles wrote:

y2johnny wrote:I voted in but now they HAVE to leave. The damage from not doing so would be irreparable

Damage to who though?

The county as a whole.  Not to mention the fact its not exactly been easy going between brexiteers and remainians.  I think it would cause a hell of a lot of aggro.

y2johnny wrote:

xmiles wrote:

y2johnny wrote:I voted in but now they HAVE to leave. The damage from not doing so would be irreparable

Damage to who though?

The county as a whole.  Not to mention the fact its not exactly been easy going between brexiteers and remainians.  I think it would cause a hell of a lot of aggro.

I am not convinced BUT it would require the Labour party to get its act together and explain the benefits of remaining and maybe a few Brexit fans could try telling the truth about the £350m and immigration.

Well I can dream.

I don't think it's a foregone conclusion yet and I think Cameron was very clever standing down and saying he was leaving it to his successor which brought not only time but also an opportunity for a new voice to address it.
I as on record voted out but after seeing what has happened since the vote, particularly to the campaigners I am doubting my decision but am confident that whatever happens from here moving forward we will be fine because we have proved throughout history we are a resilient and resourceful bunch.
One thing that does have to happen is people need to pull together, including the major parties because the biggest thing that will hinder us moving forward in in-fighting.

whatsgoingon wrote:I don't think it's a foregone conclusion yet and I think Cameron was very clever standing down and saying he was leaving it to his successor which brought not only time but also an opportunity for a new voice to address it.
I as on record voted out but after seeing what has happened since the vote, particularly to the campaigners I am doubting my decision but am confident that whatever happens from here moving forward we will be fine because we have proved throughout history we are a resilient and resourceful bunch.
One thing that does have to happen is people need to pull together, including the major parties because the biggest thing that will hinder us moving forward in in-fighting.

Did nobody tell the Leave voters that the referendum wasn't the actual decision? I thought that was made clear from the outset?

Obviously if a third of the voting public want us to leave the EU then that's something the Government need to take into consideration.

But isn't it more important to take the country's best interests into consideration?

It's been as clear as day that the Leave campaign didn't think it through and it's leaders abandoning ship like rats on the Titanic, but worse still the Government made no contingencies for a Leave vote so they have no plan either - presumably they thought it wasn't going to happen?

So right now they are negotiating like crazy behind the scenes to assess what deals we might be able to get and what the cost to the UK will be.

Obviously if it means bankrupting and then breaking up the UK they won't enforce Article 50.

It's becoming increasingly obvious that the leave campaigners didn't expect or want to get the leave vote, but wanted it to be close enough to undermine the government and it's leadership and claim a moral victory.
To actually win the vote was something they hadn't even anticipated it seems, so like has been said many times they are like rats leaving a sinking ship.
A close remain vote would have been the ideal scenario all round because the status quo would have been maintained but a warning shot would have been fired across the bows of both the government and the EU about the need for reform.

The job is a poisoned chalice for the following reason:

The Leave campaign succeeded by convincing their voters that the so-called "threats" of the financial experts weren't important as nobody can predict what will happen. A bit like saying smoking isn't bad for you because nobody can predict what will happen to any particular individual person, or global warming doesn't exist because nobody can be sure that other factors aren't causing the anomalies.

In doing so, they devalued the importance of financial forecasting in the minds of Leave voters.

Now they have started negotiations, the pound has devalued, British stocks have fallen, our economy has been overtaken by France, our credit rating has been downgraded and we have already shown our cards to the other players, the financial forecasters are saying our future looks dire.

So the new PM is in a no win position.

If they stick with the principle of ignoring the financial experts, Britain will face years of depression and austerity and may well never recover. However if they listen to the financial experts and decide it would be suicidal to invoke Article 50 they will get lynched by the Leave voters.

You can't start explaining international finance and it's impact on jobs, money, housing, medicare, pensions, immigration etc to the Leave voters at this stage having just convinced them that it's not important.

whatsgoingon wrote:It's becoming increasingly obvious that the leave campaigners didn't expect or want to get the leave vote, but wanted it to be close enough to undermine the government and it's leadership and claim a moral victory.
To actually win the vote was something they hadn't even anticipated it seems, so like has been said many times they are like rats leaving a sinking ship.
A close remain vote would have been the ideal scenario all round because the status quo would have been maintained but a warning shot would have been fired across the bows of both the government and the EU about the need for reform.

Completely agree. And also agree with Wanders, the legality is clear on one point at least. We are a representative democracy, any public vote such as a referendum, is advisory only. May we live in interesting times!

Voting with confidence either way was almost impossible due to the conflicting pros and cons, the lies, exaggerations and negative campaigning on both sides. "Abstain in disgust" should have been an option on the ballot paper.

However, the aftermath has been even more dispiriting. Conflict and division dominate. If Remain had won by a similar margin, would the Leavers have marched in protest against the will of the majority? Surely the result showed that most citizens were in favour of democracy and self-governance at the expense of the economic arguments that few chose to believe.....unsurprisingly when "experts" and government have proved themselves wrong, unprincipled and deceitful so often in the recent past. DC's camp have only got themselves to blame, like the boy who cried "wolf".

The trouble with the Leave outcome is that no party is in any fit state to oversee what is necessary for our country, so the idea of self-governance has rebounded on us due to the lack of quality in our leaders. I despair when I read that some ministers are backing the weasel Gove for PM!! One of them even says that he is a "man of immense principle"!!!  I just don't understand:- how can he ever be trusted again? Don't ministers ever learn or are they just dim?

It has also now been shown that the EU is not only undemocratic but incapable of change or reform. The pitiful concessions DC "won" should have been warning enough as were responses to BBC website articles where huge numbers (over 80% of our people) were backing Leave. To be unprepared is shameful on both sides.

Whether we regain sovereignty depends on what deal is reached, I find it highly unlikely we'll take back control over our borders at the expense of remaining in the free market but that's a guess at this point.

What way did you vote out of interest Okocha?

okocha wrote:Voting with confidence either way was almost impossible due to the conflicting pros and cons, the lies, exaggerations and negative campaigning on both sides. "Abstain in disgust" should have been an option on the ballot paper.

I generally agree with the points but I take issue on this one Okocha.

The lie that won the campaign was that both sides were lying.

Remain were absolutely honest in saying "the experts think that leaving the EU will cause irreparable damage to the country but (financial forecasting isn't an 100% exact science and therefore...) we can't be certain."


Obviously no expert in their right mind would claim that any forecast is guaranteed 100% accurate - but it is the most likely option from the information available.

The fact that the experts gave a professional disclaimer was twisted into being "nobody knows" (instead of "our brightest brains think the most likely outcome will be")

And once the concept of "nobody knows for sure" was positioned central in the public mind, it soon morphed into "they're telling lies" - which is the opposite of what happened in the case of the Remain campaign.

I may have overlooked something but I'm genuinely struggling to think of anything the Remain campaign said that has subsequently turned out to be a lie. Remind me....

The austerity budget which Osborne has already said won't be happening